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Cabbage Slaw

A cabbage slaw dressed with a vinegar, sugar, egg yolk, cream, butter, mustard, and salt mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and cabbage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,645 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cabbage Slaw

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Boil the vinegar and sugar together.

  2. Mix the beaten egg yolk, cream, butter, mustard, and salt.

  3. Stir the mixture into the boiling vinegar.

Serve

  1. Once cold, pour over the shredded cabbage.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Mustard + cabbagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Vinegar + cabbagetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the slaw's dressing.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Egg yolk
Thickens the dressing as its proteins set with gentle heat, giving it body.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sharpness of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
French mustard
Adds a sharp, aromatic flavour and helps hold the emulsion together.

The step that matters

Stirring the mixture into the boiling vinegar. Egg yolk proteins set with heat and can scramble into lumps if they meet hot liquid too quickly. Blending the mixture in gradually keeps the dressing smooth and thick.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, sugar, egg, cream, butter, mustard):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar, egg, cream, butter, mustard. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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